Audience calls park board on meeting procedures

A county board and audience members talked about an issue that has arisen several times in county meetings in the last year-and-a-half — public involvement in county meetings.

In a nearly two-hour meeting last week, the Hill County Park Board and audience members spent more time talking about how to discuss and vote on matters than it did on actual agenda item discussions and votes.

Audience member Blanche Kellam told the board that when she bought a cabin in Beaver Creek Park, she started coming to park board meetings. She said that, as a seven-year member of the Chinook Public School Board, she learned something about how public meetings should be conducted.

“I was truly shocked at the lack of structure and proper procedure during the (park board) meetings,” Kellam said.

She added that people just want the board to act in the public interest and to allow public participation, not to “take aim” at any particular board member.

“It’s not that we’re here to pick on anybody,” she said.

Issues of public information and public meeting procedures have arisen several times in the past year.

The Great Northern Fair Board last year voted to hire a fairgrounds manager without notifying the public it was going to vote. After an article was published saying that it violated Montana open meeting laws, the board scheduled the issue on a published agenda and voted again.

Earlier this year, the Hill County Commission discussed or held votes on several issues including eliminating the fairgrounds manager and revising the staffing at the Hill County Attorney’s Office, the Hill County Justice of the Peace Office and the Hill County Treasurer’s Office without listing those specific issues on its agenda. The commission said general listings in its business meeting like “Resolutions” and “Employment Review” covered those items.

In recent weeks, the commission has started sending listings of specific items in its weekly business meetings to the Havre Daily News to be published in the meeting agenda.

Conflicts of interest

In last week’s Park Board meeting, the board discussion started with an agenda item requested by board member and Hill County Commissioner Mark Peterson, for Lou Hagener to discuss conflicts of interest on the board.

Hagener told the board that although he has been bringing up the issue of potential conflicts of interest to the board, he is being singled out on the issue when many people have concerns about it.

He said Hill County has a truly unique resource in the 10,000 acre Beaver Creek Park in the Bear Paw Mountains and it needs to be managed for the benefit of the park and the county residents.

“I am frustrated and disappointed with the park board and commissioners as many county citizens are,” Hagener said. “A lot of people won’t speak up because they don’t know how, fear reprisal, and believe the process is rigged and pre-decided.”

Hagener said some board members won’t talk to members of the public who have concerns or comments, won’t do the research needed and don’t act in the best interests of the park.

“What do you expect?” Hagener asked.

He thanked board members who are listening, reading, returning calls and emails, are doing the research and are willing to meet people.

He said he makes no apologies to board members who have not acted in the interests of the park and “have gone so far as to hurt our park to the benefit of the select few.”

Hagener said that under Montana Code Annotated, it is illegal to have conflict of interest for members of the board, although Todd Hanson did submit a letter with some ideas how to work around the conflicts in specific instances.

“It is still illegal,” Hagener said.

He added that the park board needs to act in the interests of the park every time. If anyone is acting in their own interests or for the benefit of someone else instead of in the interests of the park, they should not be on the board.

The example that managed grazing could be used to help the ecology of the park, but any suggestion to change how grazing is handled is immediately quashed.

He said the same is true of haying — every year haying done on the park increases damage to the land, but suggestions to change it are ignored.

He said while managed grazing could be a good tool to help the ecology, as it stands now it is a good tool to spread weeds.

Audience member Lowell Alcock said an example of conflict of interest was when board member Tony Reum, who was acting as chair during the May board meeting, made a motion — when under parliamentary rules chairs do not make a motion — that hay rates should not be as high as recommended by a committee.

Alcock said the issue was not on the agenda, so should not have been discussed at all, the chair should not have made a motion and a rancher should not have made a motion on grazing rates.

Board member and Hill County Commissioner Diane McLean said the issue of grazing rates had been on the previous month’s agenda and had been tabled until the May meeting.

Alcock said the same thing happened in this month’s meeting when the board voted on using Hill County Conservation District funds given to the board for East Fork Fire expenses when spending those funds was not on the agenda.

McLean said discussion of the conservation district funds was on the agenda for this month’s meeting.

Alcock had earlier told the board, when it discussed adding an item to the agenda, that it was not supposed to discuss or vote on items that were not on the published agenda and that members of the public were not aware of.

Board Chair Steve Mariani said the board wants to work to resolve these issues.

“I think we’re trying to move in a right direction,” he said.

Mariani said that, as Hanson wrote in his letter, this issue arises many times in Montana. He said he, as a cabin owner, is willing to abstain on any vote involving cabins. He said he has discussed that with board members and ranchers Reum and Larry Kinsella, if they were willing to do the same on grazing issues.

Board protecting itself

Kellam said that should be the case in any conflict of interest, for the public interest and for the board itself. She listed a case where a school board allowed a vote with conflict of interest and that vote was taken to the Supreme Court, which overturned the board decision.

“It’s not a pick-on thing, it’s a law and it’s a law there to protect the citizens with the right to speak and to protect the board in future litigation,” she said.

She said the issue of following public meeting procedures is needed to allow people to participate in the procedure.

“It appears to me that some of us who speak up have become persona non grata with the individuals on the park board,” she said. “This is very disheartening to me because I personally come to the meetings to be informed and, at times, to offer an opinion; most often in hopes of being helpful but at times because I truly disagree with the board.

“That being said, I sincerely hope that we can move forward, agreeing and disagreeing while respecting each others opinions and work together to do what is best for all who use the parks in Hill County,” she added.

Kellam also addressed an item on the agenda raised by Peterson. Peterson had sent letters to the Beaver Creek Park cabin owners and to the Friends of Beaver Creek Park saying they should follow state public meeting requirements.

Kellam said because the cabin owners, as per their lease with the park, do not have any regulatory authority and are not supported by or expending public funds — the definition under Montana Law as to what bodies the law applies to — they are not required to follow Montana’s open meeting laws.

Rose Cloninger, one of the cabin owners who was at the board meeting, asked Peterson why he wanted the group to follow the public meeting laws.

He said he wants to sometimes attend their meetings, and has gone to some when no one showed up.

Cloninger said the group meets the last Monday of the month at 6:30 p.m. in the Havre High School library and anyone is welcome to attend. She said sometimes the group doesn’t meet in the winter, and she sends out notice if that is true.

Several people on the board and in the audience talked about using committees, which the board has created, to address issues.

Board member Renelle Braaten said, as she has in the past, the board needs to create a natural resources committee and said last week it should make Hagener the chair of that committee.

Hagener said the board already has created committees that have done some excellent work.

“So let’s let it work and respect their work and stop thumbing our noses at them,” he said. “If we spend as much time cooperating and trying to fix problems and resolve issues and create the future we need and want instead of arguing and trying to get our own way … things would work.

“We need to stop politics and move to looking after our parks and the whole of the citizens,” Hagener added. “If we don’t, we are no better than our U.S. Congress and demonstrating that local government is no better than higher government control and may even be worse.”